


should end this bloody game

by blue--phantom (twilightscribe)



Series: my hollow heart has bled me dry [2]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Angels, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Hunters, Angels, Developing Relationship, Immortality, M/M, Prompt Fic, Reaper76 Week, Snippets, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-21
Updated: 2017-01-21
Packaged: 2018-09-18 21:34:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9403742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twilightscribe/pseuds/blue--phantom
Summary: Jack and Gabriel over the decades.





	

He remembers that his younger sister sacrificed her wings to save a mortal’s life.

At the time, he had still been raw from the loss of their brother. He couldn’t believe or understand what she meant when she looked at him, sorrow warring with happiness in her eyes, and told him what she had done.

“He is my heart,” she murmurs. “And so I gave mine to save him.”

Her wings in exchange for a clockwork heart that ticks down the time until both of them shall die. She bought him time to live, for them to have a family of their own. He remembers her joy and the children that had forlicked and played; the children that they raised, that he watched over in the years after they had both passed on.

She had grown old with the mortal she fell in love with. Her own tied to his so closely that when one fell ill so did the other. She had laughed and loved with everything she was. She had healed and soothed and brought her mortal peace that he claimed to have never known before her.

He remembers her dying. Her children growing old, following after their mother in death.

He is reminded that he is alone.

 

 

 

Centuries later, he understands her like he never did before.

 

 

 

At first, it had been about little more than company. Gabe had been lonely after spending so many decades wandering the world by himself. It had become easy to get detached, to stop worrying so much about the casualties of his work. He had one goal in mind: eliminate threats to humanity.

Jack, though, has a real bleeding heart. He’ll stop to help anyone who asks, even without prompting on occasion.

But he’s immortal. When Gabe frees him from the mausoleum in France, he tells Gabe a spectacular story of being a soldier from the American revolutionary war. He fought against Napoleon before a couple men in the nearby town became suspicious and bricked him up in the tomb. He’d lacked the strength to escape.

With nowhere else to go and because Gabe recognizes usefulness when he sees it, he invites Jack to come along with him. Join their loose organization of Overwatch and hunt down those creatures in all of their forms that prey upon humanity.

He’d been surprised, pleasantly, when Jack had said yes.

 

 

 

Gabe hadn’t realized, then, just what Jack would come to mean to him.

 

 

 

Jack is more than just a companion. He’s kind, with soft-edges that, miraculously, time hasn’t yet worn down yet.

It’s the first time since his sister that Gabe has wanted to protect someone with all that he is.

 

 

 

Jack’s got scars.

Despite the healing factor that comes with being immortal, he’s still human and humans scar. He says, though, that he has fewer now than he did before. In the beginning, he doesn’t talk much about before, aside from what Gabe needs to know.

Over time, however, he opens up.

Once, he had a family. A younger brother and two older sisters. All of them are gone now, leaving him as the only survivor. Far as he knows, his sisters started families of their own and his brother’s family still lives on their old farm back in Indiana. Jack doesn’t know for certain; he hasn’t been in contact with them since he was first cursed.

He left. Started a new life. Or tried to.

 

 

 

“You gonna tell me what happened?” Gabe asks, one night.

It’s just the two of them, sharing a dingy room above a tavern in some small town. Gabe’s sitting on the floor, leaning against the bed. Jack’s sprawled across it, being the only one of the two of them that still _requires_ sleep.

“I would,” Jack says, quietly. “But fact is that I don’t really remember.”

“Really?”

“Really, really. There’s a blank spot in my memory. The last thing I remembered is staring down the barrel of my musket… then nothing. Not until I woke up, buried in a mass grave of my fellow soldiers.” He shifts, takes a deep breath. “I had to dig my way out. It wasn’t… pleasant.”

Gabe’s seen mass graves.

“No, it’s not.”

“I couldn’t figure out what had happened,” Jack says. “At first, I thought it had just been a mistake; they’d thought I’d died and had buried me as such. But that didn’t explain why I couldn’t remember anything. I had no idea how long I was buried, how long I’d been out before then.”

“What clued you in?” Gabe asks, after a long pause.

“1799. I got stabbed in an alley in some alley in New York. I knew it should’ve been fatal, but instead I recovered from it just fine. After that, well, a man notices when he looks the same after twenty years.”

Gabe grunts. He didn’t have that; he’s always known who and what he is. But for a mortal like Jack, eternity is a lot to wrap your head around. There would have been changes, ones that Gabe never had to deal with.

“I thought I could keep going as I had been,” Jack murmurs. “Keep on fighting. Be a soldier. You get tired of it. There’s only so much death and violence that you can take before it breaks you.”

There’s nothing to say to that. So Gabe remains silent.

 

 

 

It’s late into the night, when Gabe’s fell into a doze that Jack speaks again, so softly that Gabe would’ve missed the words if not for his superior hearing.

“I’m glad it was you that found me, Gabe.”

 

 

 

Blood and brain splatters across the wall.

Everything moves in slow motion, as though his world is slowly coming to an end.

He lunges, wings towering behind him, feathers razor sharp and he decapitates the vampire with little thought. There’s more blood – _so much, Jack’s and the vampire’s running together and no it wasn’t supposed to be like this_. And all that’s running through Gabe’s head is that _it’s not supposed to end like this_.

The ends of his wings dip into the blood that’s pooling on the floor, but Gabe doesn’t care. His legs give out under him, he gathers Jack’s head into his lap. Brushes the hair from his forehead and leans down, pressing a shaking kiss against his forehead.

His skin is cooling.

He’s too late. He’s alone again.

It’s only been twenty years that they have had. It’s not enough. Only been ten since the first time that Gabe kissed Jack and he remembers that evening as though it was yesterday. He realizes, then, cradling Jack’s shattered head in his lap, that there will never be enough time in all the world.

His shoulders are shaking, his vision is blurring and his eyes are burning. He only barely has the presence of mind to close Jack’s eyes. Looking into that sightless blue, knowing that they will never smile at him again, is too much for him to bear.

Seconds pass. He doesn’t know how to keep going on his own.

 

 

 

He nearly blasts another hole through Jack’s head when he gasps back to life.

His face is streaked with blood, hair matted with it, and there’s still gray matter tangled in the strands, but Jack is _alive_ and _breathing_ and _that should not be possible_. Not even for an immortal.

Gabe will deny till the end of time that he makes an embarrassing sobbing noise and clings to Jack when he realizes that it’s _real_. That Jack is still with him.

“I couldn’t leave you just yet,” Jack murmurs. “Only benefit of this. But let’s not repeat this again anytime soon.”

“You’d better fucking not,” Gabe grumbles into Jack’s hair. He’s too elated right then to be angry. His entire body is sagging with gratitude that it’s not Jack’s time yet.

He can’t bear the thought of being alone again.

 

 

 

“You remind me of my sister sometimes,” Gabe says, one morning.

Jack looks up from cleaning his gun, “You have a sister?”

“Had.” Gabe looks down at his shotgun, clicks the barrel back into place. “She died a long time ago. I’ve lost count of the years.”

Kneeling in front of him, Jack lays his hands on top of Gabe’s. He smiles up at him, sad and soft at the edges, “I’m sorry, Gabe.”

“Don’t have to be sorry, love,” Gabe replies, brushing his hand through Jack’s hair. “She was happy in the end. She made her choices and I made mine. But… I understand her better now.”

And he does. He knows why she could give up her wings, her immortality, and tie herself forever to a mortal. He knows because he would do it – in an instant, without any thought or regret – for Jack.

He’s fallen and he knows it. His wings tingle and he knows.

It’s only a matter of time now.

**Author's Note:**

>  **Prompt:** “In Another Life” - Alternate Universe/Timelines  
>  **Words:** 1486 words
> 
> Some relationship building and teasing at yet another spin-off series for this verse that I have crafted. You can tell I don't love myself by the fact that it keeps getting larger and larger over time.
> 
> Remember, you can always find me over on [tumblr](http://graysonflynn.tumblr.com), where I'm game to talk about this AU and other things. I promise I don't bite. :)


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